Shakespeare in the bush

Shakespeare in the bush

This is a truly funny story with profound cultural complexity, which covers the relationships between language and culture in the context of literary translation. Based on the experience of adapting Hamlet to the Tiv people, Bohannan tries to explore and unearth some culture laws through her difficulties in retelling Hamlet to the African tribe without same moral values, religion belief and social behaviors.

We can see before going to Africa, Bohannan was quite sure that Hamlet had only one possible interpretation, and that one universally obvious. She claimed that “human nature was pretty much the same the whole world over; at least the general plot and motivation of the greater tragedies would always be clear—everywhere.” This idea, however, collapses as soon as she begins to try to find a proper way to correctly retell.

Just at the very beginning of Hamlet, she could only change words “castle”, “king” or “prince” into “homestead”, “the chief” and “the son of the chief”. That’s something worth marking since we have ever learned the untranslatability in translation class. For example, we translate “雨后春笋” into “to spring up mushroom after rain”, which doesn’t mean that bamboos are same with mushrooms but an appropriate equivalence for better comprehension after translation.

Moreover, as we have translations of habits and values of a particular culture, the Tiv can’t comprehend some of the Hamlet’s behaviors. The passage below, shows an interesting discussion about the concept of widow, “The son Hamlet was very sad because his mother had married again so quickly. There was no need for her to do so, and it is our custom for a widow not to go to her next husband until she has mourned for two years.” “Two years is too long,” objected the wife, who had appeared with the old man’s battered goatskin bag. “Who will hoe your farms for you while you have no husband?” This is very clear in relation to the difference between both cultures. Some concepts of monogamy vs. polygamy are revealed.

In the process of communication exist various blocks or hinders which we call “noise”. What the scholar in Stanford says is not without reason, we foreigners lack the British cultural atmosphere and knowledge so that we may distort or misinterpretate, comparing with native British. However, I still hold that though having difficulties, intercultural communication or even intercultural literature understanding are realizable.

李米雪

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